


Windmills on the Moon

by katrinawritesthings



Category: SHINee
Genre: Brotp, Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 02:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16672885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: au where its like the year 5069 and space travel is billions of lightyears away but taem still just likes looking at the moon and it’s suspicious rows of paper windmillsWhen he’s twenty-three, his insatiable want to go up to the moon and discover where all the windmills are coming from is replaced by an all-consuming burning necessity when he looks into his university’s telescope one night and actually sees someone crouching down and pushing one into the ground.tungletwitter





	Windmills on the Moon

Taemin is five when his parents finally realize his fascination with the moon is more than just a phase and buy him a real telescope instead of just a toy one.

It’s cheap still and has the bare minimum requirements to see the moon up close, but he’s five and he doesn’t know that. He just knows that with it he can see craters and pockets and even some rocks if he tries hard enough. Sometimes he can even see tiny specks of color sometimes, a small patch of pink and yellow and blue just at the edge of the dark side.

His parents tell him that the colors must be leftovers from when humans used to live on the moon and Mars, back when the Earth was uninhabitable for a few centuries. They tell him that when the humans packed up and left the moon to come back home, they took down all of the buildings but they might have forgotten a few things.

Taemin feels like maybe they don’t know what they’re talking about. He read a book once about how when the humans left the moon they took every single trace of themselves back with them. He trusts the book more than his parents; he knows that they lie to him sometimes but he doesn’t think a book has ever lied to him yet.

As he grows, so does the patch of color on the moon. Every time he sees it he notes the difference. It fascinates him, makes him wonder, makes him ache to go up there and figure out what it is.

When he’s nine, his parents buy him a better telescope and he almost blasts off through the ceiling in his excitement. It can see planets, it can see stars even, but most importantly, it can see the patch of color on the moon in perfect detail.

It’s not a solid cover of color like he thought; it’s a bunch of little colorful things in neat little rows. Fascinating. It’s hard to tell because of the angle, but if he zooms in a little more, they look kind of like windmills. Paper windmills, the kind he made during art class in second grade. Straight sticks stuck into the ground and a carefully folded paper star on each one. He spends a whole two weeks scuttling to his telescope after dinner to squint at them just to confirm his theory.

When he reports his findings to his parents, they don’t believe him. He’s not entirely surprised; they don’t believe him about a lot of things. In their defense, he makes a lot of things up.

The windmills on the moon are real, though, and every so often he thinks he sees a new row added. It’s hard to tell because they’re all just barely on the edge of the dark side. To be sure, he makes a little diagram on graph paper to keep track.

By the time he’s sixeen, he’s absolutely sure that their number is growing. His parents still don’t believe him, but that’s fine. They buy him a fancy new telescope anyway so he can look at stuff further away. They encourage him to put his interest in astronomy towards actual space exploration, maybe look into going to some space college to study one of the three billion new galaxies that have been discovered since humans left Mars. Apparently he can just pick an unclaimed one and have a pretty solid career in studying and reporting on it, if it’s not too boring.

Taemin feels like they’re probably right; at this point in space travel technology the moon might as well be a rock on the side of the driveway. He looks into galaxy exploration and colleges and whatnot when he remembers, but mostly he just likes looking up at the moon and its cozy little rows of windmills. They don’t have any wind to blow them, but some of them have little glitter stars on their tips.

When he’s twenty-three, his insatiable want to go up to the moon and discover where all the windmills are coming from is replaced by an all-consuming burning necessity when he looks into his university’s telescope one night and actually  _sees_  someone crouching down and pushing one into the ground.

It startles him so much that he fumbles his hands on the telescope and his butt in his chair; he slips off and clatters to the floor and his foot kicks up and knocks the telescope out of position.

“Hey hey hey, careful, what the fuck,” Kibum scolds him. His friend and research partner grabs the telescope and inspects it for damage before frowning at him on the floor. “Did you see an incoming alien invasion or what?” he asks. “You know the space shields stop, like, ninety-nine percent of those.” He reaches a hand out to pull Taemin up. Taemin reaches blankly for it, staring at the moon above with wide eyes. He’s never actually told anyone else about the windmills. They feel like a special little secret that only he gets to keep and he likes it that way.

“I just slipped, my bad,” he mumbles. Kibum snorts, fixes his jacket, pinches his cheek softly, and gets back to whatever star he was looking at.

Taemin recalibrates his telescope and aims it back at the moon, but by then, the windmill planter is nowhere to be found. He sighs as he scans the surface. He thinks he saw pink hair.

When Taemin is twenty-seven, he puts his hands on his cheeks and tries his hardest to calm his breathing as he sits behind the wheel of his space cruiser. This is fine. He’s fine. This isn’t illegal. It’s not illegal! It is absolutely, positively, one hundred percent, not illegal.

He thinks.

He’s sure it has to be legal. He found nothing in any space law about it being illegal to just launch himself up to the moon. There was something about it being illegal to destroy the moon or otherwise interrupt its orbital pattern, but even that one was outdated ever since Earth had created the technology to regulate its own gravitational pull. There wasn’t even anything about it being a space reserve. People just really don’t give a shit about the moon anymore. It’s fine. He’s fine. Going up there will be fine.

He has his space suit–one of the casual ones, yeah, slim and with barely any features besides dust armor and a lightweight oxygen mask, but still. He’s not trying to start a new life there. He doesn’t need all that bulk of an older suit or all of the cost of any fancy new high tech ones. And he has his space travel license. He got that, like, five years ago. He’s been further than the moon on his own before too with no problem. Nothing he’s doing is wrong or illegal or anything that he can get in trouble for. Probably.

He takes deep breaths and rubs his palms into his eyes. He can do this. He’s gonna do this. He’s gonna go up to the moon and finally discover the answers behind his lifelong mystery.

It takes him another few minutes of psyching himself up, but eventually, he jams his key in the ignition and takes off into the atmosphere.

He cranks the warp boosters up all the way so he has less time to contemplate chickening out and turning back.

That leads directly to him landing a little rough, but he’s landed rougher and he’s here now, so, whatever. He takes some deep breaths, makes sure his oxygen mask is nice and snug over his mouth and nose, takes another deep breath, and pushes open the door. Grabbing his backpack, he slings it over his shoulder and steps out onto the grey surface of the moon.

It’s even greyer than he expected; he grimaces at it but does smile when he can scuff the dirt a little with his boot. He likes dirt.

The gravity takes some getting used to, but he always was better at adjusting to lower gravity atmospheres than high gravity ones. Once he spends a few minutes bouncing around his ship he’s fine. From there, he looks around for the windmills.

They’re nearby; he landed close enough to see them but still a good distance away. He didn’t want to be rude.

As he moon hops himself over to where he can see them in the distance, quaint rows of pink yellow and blue, his heart thuds in his chest with both excitement and apprehension. He doesn’t really know if he wants to meet the moon person or not. He feels like, if he was a moon person that lived up here alone for over twenty years and was so secretive so as to be only seen once by accident by some random college kid obsessed with the moon, he probably wouldn’t want guests.

Taemin thinks just being able to see the windmills will be enough for him. To confirm that they’re real and he wasn’t making them up his whole life. To see them with his eyeballs and touch them with his fingers. To give one a little spin would be the ultimate validation.

Five minutes later, when he comes up on the edge of the far side side and sees just how far the windmills expand over the ground, he scratches that thought. This is the ultimate validation all on its own.

There’s so many. They cover the surface, rows upon still rows, as far as he can see left right and in front of him, curving with the moon to continue on behind the skyline.  Taemin stands there for a good ten minutes, at least, just looking at all of them, before he bends down to look at one.

It’s a blue one, five points tucked into a tiny heart-shaped pin. The stick is some painted pink wood. Yellow star and crescent moon glitter is speckled over the paper and one point looks a little rumpled. Taemin reaches out a cautious hand, a delicate finger, wanting to give it the tiniest tap just to see it spin.

“Who are you?”

Taemin starts and jumps so hard he actually takes a second to float back down. Heart thudding up in his throat, he whips around in search of the voice–and when he finds it, his heart decides to pull a 180 and stop.

Pink hair.

“It’s–you’re–you,” he blurts. He points directly at them as he gapes openly. So much for not being rude. “You–you’re the–the moon person.” He loses his balance crouched on his knees and waves a hand around until it lands on the ground to steady himself. The moon person looks at him under their pink hair, warm brown eyes, light golden brown skin, an oxygen mask and space suit much more sleek and advanced than Taemin’s. “You’re a human,” Taemin adds, intrigued. He was like 90% sure they would be an alien.

“I know who  _I_  am,” they say. Their voice is defensive and cautious and also quiet and pretty. “I asked who _you_  were.”

“Uh.” Taemin says. He blinks, swallows, paps around on the ground to regain his balance on his knees. “I’m, um.” He fidgets nervously with his hands. “I’m Taemin,” he offers. The moon person’s eyes narrow.

“Just Taemin?” they ask. Taemin feels like they’re mocking him a little and he pouts.

“Yes?” he says.

“Hmm,” the moon person hums. Taemin bites his lip. He doesn’t know what “hmm” is supposed to mean. He thinks he’s in trouble. “Are you a cop?” they ask. Immediately a good portion of Taemin’s anxiety is replaced by offense.

“Ew,” he says automatically, scrunching his nose. “Gross. I don’t look like a cop, do I?” he asks. How awful if he does. The moon person looks at him for a few more moments, then shakes their head. They crouch down next to Taemin and cross their arms over their knees.

“No,” they say. “I’m Jonghyun.”

Jonghyun. Taemin looks at Jonghyun as Jonghyun looks at their field of windmills. For someone that spent twenty-two years of his life aching to come up and learn about the windmills, he suddenly can’t think of anything to ask. What is he even supposed to ask to someone that’s hidden themself so well for decades just to cover the moon in origami?

“Do cops come up here often?” is what he eventually says. Jonghyun snorts.

“No,” they say. “No one’s ever come up here. Except you.” They turn to look at Taemin with raised brows. Taemin blinks back and turns to the windmills.

“All my life I’ve wanted to come see these,” he mumbles. “And now I’m here, and.” He reaches out and gently, gently gives the blue one a little tap. It spins just as slowly, speckles of glitter glinting in the light. A fond, warm smile pulls up his heart. “That’s so gorgeous,” he whispers. That’s everything he ever wanted to see. He reaches to tap another blue one, and then a pink one, and then reaches far over to spin a yellow one. Jonghyun watches in silence and after a minute, Taemin stiffens and snatches his hand back, suddenly guilty.

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t ask–can I..?” He gestures weakly at the still spinning windmills. Jonghyun just looks at him for a moment. Taemin can’t see their mouth, but their cheeks push up just a little and their eyes crinkle into what has to be a fond smile.

“Yeah, go ahead,” they say. Taemin breathes a sigh of relief and returns to gently spinning as many as he can. It looks just as surreal and peaceful as he always imagined it would. “This is it?” Jonghyun asks after another few moments of silence. “You just wanted to see my garden?”

“Your garden,” Taemin smiles. A garden. A garden of windmill flowers that covers half of the moon. He loves it. “Pretty much, yeah,” he says. “Oh, and.” He shrugs his backpack off of his shoulders and fiddles with the zipper. “Um,” he says, suddenly embarrassed. This is also part of why he was hoping the moon person wouldn’t want to be seen.

“I brought… these,” he mumbles. He unzips his bag and carefully takes three windmills out. One pink, one yellow, and one blue. He sees Jonghyun’s eyes widen and they reach out with a gentle hand to take the pink one. “I thought I would. You know, leave them here.” He feels his face flush as he says it. He must look like an asshole, just showing up uninvited and announcing that he wants to jam his own clumsily made windmills into Jonghyun’s lovingly crafted garden.

“I–it’s just,” he says quickly. “I told you, um, my whole life, I’ve.” He looks out at the vast fields of windmills and then back to his three. “My parents didn’t believe me, and then I never told anyone, and. I’ve always felt like. It’s a secret part of me,” he says. “So I wanted to. Be a part of it. Too.” His voice falters, trails off into nothing. This was such a bad and rude and intrusive idea. He shakes his head and starts putting his windmills away. Jonghyunvs gentle hands stop him.

“You need stronger poles,” they mumble, running their fingers over the pole attached to Taemin’s pink windmill thoughtfully. They look up with those crinkled eye corners again. “This moon dirt is real stubborn.” They pat the ground under them fondly as they gently slot the pink windmill back into Taemin’s bag. Then they stand up and hold out a hand to him. “Come inside with me and I can reinforce them for you,” they say.

When Taemin doesn’t respond to that for a few moments, Jonghyun tilts their head and wiggles their hand a little bit.

“It’s okay, take your time,” they say gently.

“I–wuh–uh–I mean,” Taemin stammers. He reaches for Jonghyun’s hand, realizes he’s still holding his windmills, and fumbles to safely put them back into his bag. “I–really?” he asks. Really? Come inside? With Jonghyun? Inside of Jonghyun’s moon home? And not, like, go back to his ship and go back to Earth and never come back? Go inside with Jonghyun?

“Yeah,” Jonghyun says simply. They take Taemin’s hand when Taemin finally reaches up and haul him to his feet. “It’s cold out here anyway,” they say. “Come on.” They turn and tug Taemin gently over the moonscape. Taemin bounces after them in a daze.

“Are you sure?” he manages to ask. He looks to the side as they move and watches rows and rows of windmills pass, each and every one made by Jonghyun only. “You don’t mind? Me planting my own?”

“Yeah,” Jonghyun says again. “I thought I was completely hidden and I have literally no idea who you are, but somehow my garden became your dream and you still kept it a secret your whole life.” They make a turn into the windmill fields and Taemin makes an involuntary whiny noise as he tries to avoid stepping on any. Jonghyun slows their pace for him with a chuckle. “I think you deserve to leave a piece of your heart here,” they say. “It’s not like it hasn’t been up here the whole time anyway.”

“Thank you,” Taemin breathes. This is better than anything he ever hoped for when he dreamed about coming up here. Jonghyun glances at him over their shoulder.

“Thank _you_ for appreciating my work,” they say.

**Author's Note:**

> #jong takes taem to his moon home nd its nice nd cozy nd moony and has lots of pretty paper nd sticks nd craft stuff  
> #and he puts taems windmill sticks into one of his fancy strong sticks like uwu and gives them back  
> #and takes taem on a tour of his garden so taem can find a good place to plant them  
> #taems wigglin the pink one in there and jongs like '''how come u havent asked me why''  
> #taem: do u. want me to ask u why??  
> #jong: idk i figured if anyone ever found me theyd wanna know why  
> #taem: i mean. i figured it was just bc like. u wanted to  
> #jong: i mean.... yeah thats why  
> #taem: so why would i ask  
> #jong: good point  
> #jong tells taem he can come visit but not like a Lot  
> #he likes bein a lonely moon boi and taems like worm


End file.
